‘Your nails, Beth!’
She curled them into her palm, flushing like a schoolgirl, pushing her spectacles up with her knuckles.
Soon Robert went off to the hospital and afternoon settled upon the house. Prudence had cooked two cods’ heads for the cats. She lifted the lid off the saucepan and out rushed an evil-smelling steam, and two pairs of boiled, reproachful eyes stared up at her. She flopped the heads on to a dish and put it outside the kitchen door. The cats walked round it, thrilled and entranced, snuffling delicately, going round and round, until the steam vanished, until they could put their noses into the gluey, boney mess.
Bertram had made a little sketch in water-colour, but was dissatisfied with it. The sky looked as heavy as lead behind his two-dimensional church, the plaster peeled from the Mimosa Café in improbable shapes, the sea lay in a hard line against the wall. He took it into the bar, where Iris was rinsing glasses, and held it under the tap. It looked better then.
3
Bertram was worried about his shirts. He liked to rough it and to mingle, as he was this evening, with men who wore coarse jerseys and smelt of fish and tobacco, as long as he could be sure of a drawerful of what is called dazzling linen somewhere off-stage, something he could return to when he made his exit. Ned Pallister had talked vaguely of ‘doing up a bundle sometime’, but Bertram distrusted this attitude towards good poplin and cambric, and had done nothing for a day or two, so that this evening, for the first time in his life, he entered the bar feeling conscious of his cuffs, which did not dazzle.
Iris was busy again. The sawdust which had once lain in great whorls over the floor was scuffled and trodden, the air blue and dense. Already Bertram had his cronies, one or two characters who were prepared to be racy and eccentric for the price of a pint. They played dominoes. Bertram bought most of the beer and they called him ‘Sir’ a great deal, laughing immoderately at his jokes.
Lily watched them from her corner, where she sat on a high stool close to the bar, cut off from the rest of them as if she were there only to talk to Iris, her brown ale standing before her almost untouched and her misery amounting to panic as the time went by. Disliking beer, she shuddered at each sip. She wanted the warmth of another personality, as if her own warmth were not enough to sustain her, but she had no one, and nowhere to go. Mrs Bracey she avoided – there was a coolness between them, not warmth – since the time when Lily’s husband was sent overseas and Mrs Bracey had told her about the brothels of the Orient and other soldiers’ entertainments which she had read about in a book the curate had lent her.
‘I never expected my man to be faithful to me in the last war,’ she had concluded.
‘Well, I’m faithful to him, aren’t I?’ Lily had cried, desperately alone and in love.
‘I should bloody well think so,’ Mrs Bracey had said.
She thought of this now, wrenching down a little more of the cold beer. In the end, it was better to face the long evening at home than to be made wretched all the time she was out by the fear of returning on her own. She had tried going to the cinema, but it was worse then, her emotions tautened to breaking point. Once she had met Mrs Foyle and they had walked back along the echoing and empty streets together. When Tory had laughed the sound seemed to return to them from the walls of the old houses. Only too soon Tory reached her own house. She said good night and went in and at once lights sprang up in the windows behind the frilly curtains. Lily had walked on down the quay and stood in the shadow of the lurching building where she lived. She took out the key and let herself in. As she passed her hand over the wall for the light-switch the lighthouse swung its beam over the room and the eyes of the waxworks seemed to flicker into life, so that she felt as if they were all standing there waiting for her.
Iris came now and leant an elbow for a moment upon the bar beside Lily. ‘Drink up,’ she said, ‘and have a short one.’
‘No thanks.’
‘Our new lodger,’ said Iris, nodding her head at a young fisherman playing darts.
‘Looks nice,’ said Lily vaguely. ‘Perhaps I could get a lodger,’ she thought, ‘or would people talk?’ She decided that people would talk and took a mouthful of beer, shivering.
‘Go on, have a short one,’ said Iris.
‘No, really, thanks.’
‘Mr Pallister sent him along this afternoon,’ Iris went on, still looking at the young man. ‘Nice hair, isn’t it?’
‘Very nice.’
It was straw-coloured, streaky. When he turned round, Lily saw his face was brick-red in contrast. He moved in a slouching, insolent way, his shiny trousers tight across his behind. When he glanced at Iris he winked mechanically, unsuggestively. He was singing all the time.
‘What’s his name?’
‘Eddie. Eddie Flitcroft.’
‘What, that old Mrs Flitcroft?’
‘Nephew. Been in the Navy.’
‘You’d think he’d live with her.’
‘Not if you knew her, you wouldn’t,’ Iris said over her shoulder, moving away to draw beer for Bertram and his friends.
‘Good evening,’ Bertram said to Lily. He drew himself up when speaking to a lady, she noticed, as if he made a little extra effort. ‘I saw you this morning.’
‘Yes.’
‘I wait with impatience for the waxworks show to open.’
‘Oh.’ She scarcely knew what to say, thinking he was making fun of her.
‘They fascinate me.’
‘It isn’t really anything much. Once we meant to do the thing properly, and then the war came.’
‘What are you drinking?’
‘Nothing, really. I’ve got this beer.’
‘But you don’t like it. Have something to warm you.’
‘I don’t know what to have. I don’t really drink. I only come in here for company. I’ll have a small port, then,’ she said in desperation, pushing away the glass of beer.
Iris brought it without surprise, although Lily had refused her a few minutes before. She took it for granted that it is better for men to pay if they will and that women do so only when they must.
Bertram stayed with Lily while she drank.
‘Better?’
She nodded and flushed.
‘You come in here for company and then sit all by yourself and speak to no one.’
‘I’m not used to it. Coming in alone. I couldn’t do it, only I know Iris. It’s someone to talk to. When my husband was alive I used to go out with him a lot. That was different.’
‘Your husband is dead?’ he asked in a low voice, and he spoke kindly, although he used that brutal, forbidden word ‘dead’. ‘I’m sorry,’ he was saying.
‘Oh, just one of those things,’ she said, as she had once heard a woman say in a film. She shrugged her shoulders.
‘People no longer know how to mourn with dignity,’ he thought. ‘Do you live there all by yourself?’
‘Yes.’
‘Rather lonely, isn’t it?’
‘Yes.’ She raised her eyes and he saw that she was afraid.
‘Have another one of these.’ She had finished her drink.
‘No, I couldn’t.’
‘Who sees you home?’ he asked, beckoning Iris, who refilled Lily’s glass.
‘I go home by myself.’
He saw the idea of being rescued light her eye. But ‘With all these young men about?’ was all he said and, lifting his glass to her, walked back to his cronies. She hated him then, knowing that he had led her to betray herself.
‘This is Eddie Flitcroft,’ Iris said, leaning over and pulling at his jersey, dragging him round. ‘Mrs Wilson!’
‘Lay off! Unhand me! Pleased to meet you, Mrs Wilson. I remember you. When I was a kid at the Sunday School Treat.’
‘Do you?’ she said listlessly.
‘When I used to come and stay at Auntie’s. Young Iris was in her pram, of course.’
‘I thought you were a stranger here.’
‘Me? No, little Edd
ie’s no stranger. I was bred all round these parts.’
‘I bet you was,’ Iris sniggered.
‘Well, what’s yours?’ he asked, looking at her glass. Girls do not introduce you to their friends except for you to buy them a drink.
‘No, no more, thanks.’
‘No?’ He didn’t try to persuade her, but sauntered away, whistling. Iris seemed fascinated by his swaying buttocks.
‘Little show-off,’ Lily thought.
‘Time, if you please!’ Ned Pallister shouted, glancing up at the clock.
In twos and threes they straggled out on to the pavement. Lily put down her glass and slid down from the stool. ‘Good night, Iris,’ she said quietly.
‘Good night, dear.’
‘Good night, Mr Pallister.’
‘Good night, Mrs Wilson.’
She felt humiliated, being turned out on to the pavement on her own at closing-time.
‘Don’t run away,’ said Bertram, crooking his elbow for her to take. She put her hand timidly on his sleeve and they walked along the pavement together.
‘This is it,’ she said, stopping in the doorway. ‘Thank you very much.’ She took her hand from his sleeve and began to search for the key.
‘I will let you in. I will make sure the house is free of burglars.’
‘I am not afraid of burglars,’ she said truthfully.
He followed her in and shut the door, smelling camphor and stuffiness. The light, when she switched it on, was a poor illumination; half the bulbs had been taken or broken.
A red rope was looped round the stands of exhibits, and Bertram stepped over it and began to peer close while Lily stood back smiling, wondering how such a lot of nonsense could ever fill her with dread and loathing.
‘Crippen, I recognise,’ said Bertram, ‘and there are Thompson and Bywaters. An interesting case that. And this – who is this?’
‘That’s the Blazing Car Murderer,’ she said, with indifference.
‘Oh, yes. A Mr Rouse, I remember.’
‘There’s nothing very up-to-date, I’m afraid. Murderers go out of fashion quickly. That’s why you can often pick them up cheap from the big places.’
‘It is better to find notoriety some other way, you think? Some men long for a moment’s fame at any price. In the old days they would go to their public execution as if they were heroes and had done something to be proud of, and would carry themselves with dignity and courage, feeling the centre of attention for the first time in their lives. They had little imagination. A hanged man is a sorry sight, and a hanged woman a sorrier. It is a great indignity to do to any human body – a sort of blasphemy, I think.’
Lily shuddered.
‘So you live here among all these mild-looking men? What is this?’
‘It’s a panorama. It lights up. But it’s getting a bit shabby now.’ She switched on a light and he read out: ‘A View of Tortures Used in the Middle Ages in Central Europe.’
‘It’s nothing to what we’ve got nowadays, is it? This is all rather a morbid background for you, my dear, but I suppose you never think of it. Where are your own rooms?’
‘Up those stairs.’
‘Run along, then. I will wait for you to get up there and then I will let myself out.’
‘Won’t you have a cup of tea?’
‘Another time. And I’ll come back in the daylight to look at the rest. Royalty and Crime. Is that what people like?’
‘Yes, I suppose so.’
‘Up you go, then.’
At the foot of the stairs she looked back and her eyes were shining. ‘You have been kinder than you know,’ she said. ‘Good night.’
Bertram heard her running up the stairs and opening a door. He had another look at Dr Crippen and let himself out, -slamming the door loudly. He walked back to the pub, feeling pleased with himself. Very tactfully he had done a great kindness. When he was kind to people he had to love them; but when he had loved them for a little while he wished only to be rid of them and so that he might free himself would not hesitate to inflict all the cruelties which his sensibility knew they could not endure.
At the Anchor Iris was putting on her coat. She had hoped Eddie would wait for her, but he had gone off at closing-time.
‘Iris, dear, what can I do about my cuffs?’ Bertram began at once, holding out his arms, his hands drooping miserably. ‘Who in this place will look after my linen?’
‘My sister would, I daresay.’
‘I ask you because you always look crisp and starched yourself.’
She smiled a little into the mirror, rolling her hair with her fingers, looking expectant, as if she were going out for the evening.
‘I’ll ask Maisie.’
‘There’s a dear girl.’
‘I suppose it was “dear” and “darling” all the way home with Mrs Wilson, too.’
‘Yes, of course. I like young women.’
‘Oh, you do?’
‘Yes.’
‘You’ll get quite a name for yourself soon.’
‘I hope so.’
‘I even saw you jawing to the doctor’s girl this morning.’
‘Yes, a strange girl.’
‘A bit touched, I should say. Stayed at school till she was nineteen.’
‘I think she is beautiful.’
‘Yes, she is,’ Iris said fairly. ‘Bar the eyes.’
‘But her eyes are the most beautiful thing about her.’
‘That’s what you tell me. Oh, well!’ She turned away from the mirror and became brisk. ‘I must be off.’
‘You look very nice. But it seems a pity. It must be your bedtime.’
‘You might think so. Good night, Mr Pallister.’
‘Good night, Iris.’ He was bringing in a crate of lemonade.
‘All these girls talk the same,’ Bertram said to him when Iris had gone. ‘It must be the cinema.’
‘That’s right. You seem to get the same answer no matter what you say. They come back at you very sharp but it don’t seem to mean nothing. And they all stick out their bust such a devil of a way. It makes you wonder where to look sometimes.’
‘Busts come and go,’ said Bertram. ‘When I was in my hey-day they were thought nothing of and the girls all stuck their stomachs out instead. Well, when I say “stomach” you’ll understand my meaning. Now, they’re all frightened to let their breath go. But I daresay they’ll soon be on the wane again.’
‘It makes you wonder,’ said Mr Pallister, ‘how they do it . . . Did you get on with your painting to-day?’
‘Not so bad,’ Bertram began in a sort of bedside manner. ‘One of these days you shall have your little picture.’ And he walked over and peered at the harbour scene on the wall in the corner.
‘Well!’ said Mr Pallister suddenly. ‘Mrs Foyle never looked in for her supper beer.’
‘She went to London for the day,’ Bertram said, and turned back to the picture again, counting the waves, which were arranged evenly, corrugated, from the lighthouse to the horizon, and were still breaking a little into Chinese white as far out as the eye could see.
After supper Robert went to a nursing-home some miles out about an overdue confinement. He felt tired and bad-tempered and snapped at the matron when he was coming away.
‘I did wonder if you would advise an induction,’ she said, swimming down the corridor beside him, her skirts, her veil spreading and crackling.
‘Too much interference these days. It can stay there till it grows whiskers as far as I’m concerned,’ Robert said, opening the front door. ‘Good night.’
‘Good night, doctor.’ Her lips smiled but her eyes blazed at his rudeness. He knew she would go hurrying upstairs to punish the patient, and he walked down the path between the laurels feeling ashamed.
He was high on the cliffs between the new town and the old, and inland a little, so that there was no smell of the sea. Far below, the lighthouse winked faintly and above the railway-cutting a great plume of fiery smoke rushed alo
ng, buffeted by the wind and followed by the trim, gilt, lit-up train, the last train.
He freed the brake and let the car tip silently downhill until he was in the lamp-lit streets again, going slowly still, and only switching on the engine when he was by the station square.
Tory came quickly through the barrier carrying a large paper bag in one hand and her feathery hat in the other. She looked white under the station lights and a curl had sprung loose on her forehead.
He stopped the car and leant over, opening the door for her.
‘What’s all this clutter?’
‘A new hat.’
‘Why?’
She didn’t answer, settling herself down with a great deal of rustling, pushing her hair up with the back of her hand.
‘Been on a case?’
‘Yes.’
‘Baby?’
‘Not so far.’
‘Must be a bore.’
‘I thought women found it exciting.’
‘Oh, do they?’
‘You’re tired.’
‘Yes, I feel tired and filthy dirty.’
‘You’ve been to see your husband,’ he said suddenly in an accusing way.
‘Yes, I did.’
‘But why? Why?’
‘I get drawn back like a murderer to the scene of the crime, or a dog . . . we won’t go into that, perhaps.’
‘Where did you see him?’
‘He goes every day to the same place to lunch and it is also where I go when I am shopping. I see no reason why I should change my fixed habits to oblige him.’
Robert made no answer.
‘I have to go,’ she went on. ‘I get the feeling that I must have a look at him to see if he’s still alive.’
‘Was he alone?’
‘Yes. Well, I mean, he was with another man.’
‘Did you speak to him?’
‘Yes, he came to my table and said, “Good morning, Victoria,” and I said, “Good morning, Teddy,” and he said “How are you?” and I said “Very well, thank you, Teddy,” and he said “That is a mad sort of hat you are wearing,” and then he said “Will you excuse me?” and after that he went off.’ She laughed. ‘I had put on the new hat I’d just bought and it is very lovely, like a little straw dish full of lilac. Yes, mad, of course, but hats should be, and dreadfully painful too. It felt like a crown of thorns and I kept putting up my hand to see if it had drawn blood.’
A View of the Harbour Page 5
